Stewart's arrival at 'Dega not what he had expected
http://www.nascar.com/2007/news/head...nts/index.html
TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Members of Joe Gibbs Racing's No. 20 team arrived at Talladega Superspeedway shortly after sunrise Friday, ready to unload their orange and white racecar in preparation for the Nextel Cup weekend. NASCAR officials wouldn't let them do it.
They wanted a word with the driver first.
Tony Stewart was shaken out of bed at 6 a.m. to meet with NASCAR brass over recent remarks he made on a satellite radio program questioning the validity of debris cautions. Series president Mike Helton, vice president Robin Pemberton and Nextel Cup director John Darby spent an hour chastising the two-time champion, who later backed off comments comparing NASCAR to pro wrestling and implying that events were staged.
"To be honest, the group that I spoke with this morning is a group of peers that I trust. If they tell me the stuff is out there, I believe them," he said. "I should have went to them instead of just saying it out in public. That's frustration that's been building up for weeks with me with all these debris cautions."
Winless on the season despite leading more laps than anyone else on the Nextel Cup tour, frustrated by debris cautions that have hampered his chances of reaching Victory Lane, Stewart blew off the media after finishing second to Jeff Gordon last weekend at Phoenix. He saved his animosity for Tuesday, when he vented on the weekly Sirius Satellite Radio program he co-hosts with FOX pit reporter Matt Yocum.
"It's like playing God. They can almost dictate the race instead of the drivers doing it. It's happened too many times this year," spat Stewart, who said he was suffering from a 100-degree fever during the two-hour program, which he left early.
"I guess NASCAR thinks, 'Hey, wrestling worked, and it was for the most part staged, so I guess it's going to work in racing, too.' I can't understand how long the fans are going to let NASCAR treat them like they're stupid before the fans finally turn on NASCAR," he added.
"I don't know that they've run a fair race all year."
The remarks infuriated image-conscious NASCAR officials, who were waiting when the garage opened at 6 a.m. Friday, and wouldn't let the No. 20 team unload its car off the transporter until after they had spoken with Stewart. Later, NASCAR penalized Stewart $10,000 and placed him on probation through the end of the year -- not for his radio comments, but for violating entry-blank stipulations obligating the top three finishers to meet with the media.
"It's a little tender for me to sit down right now," Stewart quipped.
But to NASCAR, it was no joke. Jim Hunter, NASCAR's vice president for corporate communications, said series officials wrestled for two days with whether to penalize Stewart for the comments made on his radio program. While that's not uncommon in other sports -- NBA players, for instance, have been fined for implying that officials favor certain teams -- NASCAR instead opted for a severe tongue-lashing.
"I cannot say strongly enough how disappointing this was to NASCAR," Hunter said. "To all the people who have helped build this sport over the years and put so much time and effort into it, to have what I would call just some out of the blue comments that attack the integrity of the sport, to me that is jut wrong."
Stewart seemed to get the message. "I know I did a lot of damage," he said. "I'm a lot of times my own worst enemy."
Drivers questioning the timing of caution flags is nothing new -- Ricky Rudd once wondered about the "magical debris caution" that cost him a chance to win a Nextel Cup race at Charlotte in 2000 -- but Stewart boldly leapt over the line of acceptance with his analogy to pro wrestling and his insinuation that the fix was in. Among his fellow competitors, who have experienced their own issues with debris cautions, the issue wasn't the subject matter but the extremes he took to get his message across.
"I didn't agree with his comparison to wrestling, and I didn't agree with him saying NASCAR hadn't run a fair race. I didn't agree with those things. A conversation about cautions is OK to have," Jeff Burton said.
"I think Tony exaggerated when he made the comparisons, which inflamed the issue more than it needed to be inflamed, and made it counterproductive instead of productive. Tony didn't mean any harm by it. He was trying to make a point. Tony's a purist. He's a racer's racer. What he was trying to say was, let's just make sure we're thinking about the racing. It became counterproductive when he kind of exaggerated some of the things. That's my opinion. He didn't mean any harm by it. He meant good by it."
Stewart admitted as much Friday morning, saying his comments were prompted by a root concern for fair competition within the sport (listen here). They were jarringly candid, he added, because that's the way he is.
"You're going to at least know where I stand with something. That's kind of my job with that [radio] show, to say what's on my mind and speak what I think is the truth. If I'm wrong about it, I apologize, and I'm wrong. But Tuesday when I said that, I believed what I was saying," he said.
"It wasn't meant to hurt the France family or anything else. I said those things because I care about the competition in this sport. Yeah, this is how I make my living, but when I'm out there racing, I care more about the trophy than I do the paycheck. The thought of it not being on the up-and-up was something that I was frustrated about. But after having the meeting [Friday], I feel more confident it's not that way, and I wish I would have went to [NASCAR] in the first place."
Gordon, the series leader entering Sunday's Aaron's 499 at Talladega, believes Stewart's comments were born of pure frustration. Stewart had led nearly a quarter of all laps run this season, and was in position to contend for wins at Daytona, Atlanta, Bristol and Phoenix before various circumstances intervened.
"He's been in a position to win a lot of races, and it hasn't happened, and there have been some cautions that have been questionable to a lot of us out there," Gordon said. "But never once did I ever think that NASCAR is trying to fix the race or change the outcome of the race. There may be debris out there, and they don't want to call the caution because they're trying to get conformation of what the debris is."
At Phoenix, Gordon said the issue was a plastic bag that sat on the track for a number of laps, which NASCAR may have been hoping would blow away. Hunter said officials often need several laps to identify an object on the track as something potentially harmful or benign. And Burton is adamant that, despite the contentions of conspiracy theorists in the fan base, the sanctioning body does not issue cautions to benefit one driver or harm another.
"Any belief by teams or by fans that NASCAR does something to help a particular team, that drives me wacko," he said. "I'll quit if I believe that's where we are. I'll just have to quit. I don't believe they throw a caution so Jeff Gordon can win Phoenix. That worked out, and the 24 car got lucky. It wasn't NASCAR's fault. I don't think they throw a caution so the Lowe's car can win at Lowe's Motor Speedway. I think that's ludicrous. If ever believe that it's like that, I'd quit."
In many ways the entire saga is vintage Stewart, a driver who's outspokenness has often landed him in trouble with a series that says it wants its drivers to speak their minds. NASCAR, Hunter said, is not in the business of censoring drivers. But as Stewart proved this week, that tolerance extends only to a point.
"He's like the Rosie O'Donnell right now of NASCAR," Gordon said, comparing Stewart to the politically incorrect comedienne. "Controversy is something that he's been used to, and to me it brings a lot of flair to the sport."
This week, it was a flair NASCAR could have done without. "I think it's very disappointing," Hunter said, "when a very successful guy attacks the integrity of the sport that he's done quite well in."
